If you moved from a high cost of living city back to your home town, how much did that have to do with it? In HCOL cities the crazy rent or mortgage costs keep everyone running and cut into discretionary funds for assistance.
The more interesting question is: If people in HCOL areas are so poor that they can't even afford to make time to bask in friendships with the people the city has to offer, why are they still there?
Most small towns and medium sized cities, at least in the USA, have a serious lack of stepping stone opportunities. There are low-paying service and entry level jobs and there are high paying jobs that require extensive experience. There is often nothing in between.
as the other comment says, small towns don't have good jobs. so you still have the commute to bigger ones with the jobs. also i forgot another category: entertainment. if you are not an outdoor nature person, small towns have little to offer.
Okay, sure. "Do you want a fun job or do you want a well paying job?" is the age old question. Rarely do you get to have both. If what you are trying to say is: "They are willing to give up friendships and everything else that is usually considered to be important to one's personal life to be able to have fun at work", that is a reasonable answer, but this exchange is a strange way to communicate that if that is your intent.
> also i forgot another category: entertainment. if you are not an outdoor nature person, small towns have little to offer.
1. If you can't even afford to visit with a friend now and again, you most certainly can't afford such entertainment. In your feverous attempt to settle the post-purchase rationalization pangs have you forgotten what the discussion is about?
2. I never understood this anyway. Cities, especially the North American ones that resonate most with the HN crowd, are typically designed for outsiders (i.e. car culture), usually to the detriment of those who live inside the city. As a result, you quite often have better access to those big city entertainment venues by living in a small town than you do living within the very city! Where does this bizarre idea that you can only be entertained within the municipal borders in which you live come from? This is not the first time I've heard it.
american cities maybe. but european cities most certainly not.
Do you want a fun job or do you want a well paying job?
the problem is that small cities likely have neither. if they have jobs at all.
If you can't even afford to visit with a friend now and again, you most certainly can't afford such entertainment.
depends on the location. the city where i am from has plenty of free entertainment options that i would not have outside.
hackerspaces, irish folk sessions, when i was in LA i participated in irish dancing. these kind of culture activities need a critical mass that only exists in cities. in the US in small cities i might find country music sessions and square dance and maybe some other popular activities, but not the ones i'd be interested in.
also food. in LA i found a russian supermarket with had european style food that i could not find anywhere else in the US. anywhere in the world, the larger the city the more options i had available.
of course the original argument was that the cost of living was so high that people don't have money left, which was never true for me. but i also never had an issue making friends without needing money. so i think that original argument is just an excuse. if it is an argument at all. as many other commenters already said, having time for friends is a matter of choice. and it's not a matter of time or money. i could also argue that the kind of people i like to have as friends also have similar big city preferences just like me, so i like to live in a big city because for me it makes finding friends easier.
Isn’t it the opposite? Moving from HCOL to LCOL can be somewhat easy as the home equity or savings you built up in HCOL goes a longer way in the destination. Surely easier than moving from LCOL to HCOL?
Not when the real estate market is in the chaos it is right now, most of the ‘easy’ LCOL areas are not only not as LCOL, but have turned politically unpalatable, and there are large efforts now to do things like RTO in HCOL areas.
>Part of the reason I don’t live in America is I see a lot of people on salaries 2-4x mine who seem to be unable to have time to see their friends.
This is just a choice though. A choice Americans absolutely love making, but a choice none-the-less. On Reddit some dude was trying to argue that an individual needs $70,000 a year in fixed expenses just to live. Bare minimum. OTOH, I have what I consider an absurdly luxurious life and I spend less than $60,000/year TOTAL.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DwlQ_5A2mKU - this is a video of someone who makes $2,200/month and has zero expenses (her parents pay for everything) and is in serious financial trouble.
Spend some time on bogleheads and you’ll see it all - from people saving $120k a year on $140k salary, to those spending $700k a year and not finding anything to save.
The biggest thing I’ve learned is that if you have a monthly expense, it becomes “necessary fixed expense” damn quickly.
Even if it’s $50 a month for telephone sanitizing.
> On Reddit some dude was trying to argue that an individual needs $70,000 a year in fixed expenses just to live. Bare minimum.
... Wait, how the hell did they figure that out? Did they itemise it? Was most of it just going on a very expensive mortgage or something? Are they including retirement savings?
(I've no rent or mortgage, due to having been very lucky with employer equity, but I'm not sure I could spend 60k EUR a year on myself even if I wanted to; there is only so much stuff that you'd reasonably want to spend money on.)
Yeah, I can't find the post again but they itemized it according to what they thought was normal basics.
I remember there was large car payments.
OI have been driving for more than 25 years, I've had a car payment for maybe 10 months in those 25 years. To me a car payment is a massive luxury, to this dude it's a minimum basic.
Frighteningly common attitude amongst Americans, including my parents. Never made sense to me. I get that American cities are basically designed to require a car, but that doesn't mean you need to finance or lease something brand new all the time.
Huh, I would argue that someone who has 70k after tax per year to spend generally shouldn't be buying a car with debt _at all_; they should be able to afford to save and buy one outright.
I save for my cars, I don't, generally, finance them. I did finance one car once when I was a young engineer and still had student loans. I did it because I was just starting my career. Paid off the loan completely within a year.
I basically think everyone, no matter your income, should strive to save for their cars as much as possible, and try to avoid financing. Always financing a car is a trap to always spend more than you can really afford on a car. Saving and paying cash allows you to really gauge what is affordable. Even my sister in law who makes close to minimum wage has always been able to save for her cars and pay cash.
